National Writer Projects Cost to Extend Pending Free Agent Braves Pitcher

The Atlanta Braves have a decision to make on a new contract for one of their longest-tenured pitchers

The Atlanta Braves and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos have built a Major League roster full of long-term contractural control at virtually every single defensive position. 

But things aren't as rosy with the pitching staff, with multiple pending free agents out of the starting rotation after this season. 

One national writer, Tim Britton of The Athletic, tried to calculate what it would cost if the Braves wanted to pre-emptively sign lefty ace Max Fried to a contract extension before the season ended. 

And this isn't just a guess; Britton consulted 900 free-agent and extension contracts, cross-referencing them with statistical production leading up to and in platform years to calculate what a player might receive from their team when signing a pre-free agency deal. 

In his analysis, available for subscribers of The Athletic, Britton identified the closest comps to Fried's pre-free agency performance as 2016 Zack Greinke and 2013 Cole Hamels, despite last year's injuries.

(As we've previously explained, Fried's 2023 was an outlier from a health standpoint, with the lefty typically dealt with short IL stints but still posted for  28 or more starts and about 165 to 185 innings per season.)

No, Max Fried isn't "injury prone"

Operating off of the expected performance of Fried from last season without the injury limiting him to only 14 starts, Britton's calculations increased from last offseason's proposed six years and $144M to a new value of seven years and $195M. 

This works out to an Annual Average Value of $27.86M per year for Fried, which would make him the highest-compensated member of the roster from an AAV standpoint. Of Atlanta's numerous long-term contracts, none of them are set to exceed $22M/year at any point in their duration. 

That's not to say that $22M/year is a hard limit - the reported offer for Philadelphia's Aaron Nola was $27M per year and Anthopoulos signed third baseman Josh Donaldson for $23M prior to the 2019 season - but it would represent a new high-water mark for the current roster. 

Additionally, Anthopoulos has shown an unwillingness in his Braves tenure to commit long-term to a pitcher in his 30s, even one as good as Max. That Nola deal was for six years and would represent - by far - the longest-term deal given to a pitcher of age 30 or higher under the current front office. The longest current deal for any over-30 pitcher has been the three years guaranteed (plus a 4th year as a club option) for free agent Reynaldo López this offseason, and it's important to note that that deal was signed when he was still only 29 years old. (López turned 30 on January 4th, less than two months after signing with Atlanta.)

So this may not even come down to the money for the Atlanta front office, but rather the length of the contract that Fried is able to get on the open market. 

In a follow-up piece, Britton discusses the timing of each of the 50 possible extensions he proposed during the course of the week, and Fried's timing was interesting. 

In Britton's opinion, Fried's potential extension fell into his Tier 4, which he called "makes more sense for the player" to go ahead and get the extension. Britton explains that signing for the proposed seven-year, $195M "more or less values Fried as if a down season in 2023 didn’t happen." with the explanation of a bounce-back season in 2024 not really raising the value of Fried significantly higher than where it was in the projection. 

One has to wonder if a Cy Young-contending year for Fried, who was the runner-up to a generational season from Miami's Sandy Alcántara in the 2022 National League race, would change things. Given the Zach Wheeler extension with Philadelphia earlier this week, the top of the starting pitcher market this offseason projects to be between Corbin Burnes, traded from the Milwaukee Brewers to the Baltimore Orioles this offseason, and Fried. Does a Cy Young for Fried catapult him into the top of the market? 

In our opinion, signing Fried in spring training would be a bigger priority for Atlanta than Fried. As Britton says, there's not much that would lower the price of Fried between now and the end of the season (barring catastrophic injury), but we disagree that Fried's market might not increase between now and the end of the season. Finally capturing a Cy Young award, combined with a potential extension for Burnes from Baltimore's new deep-pocketed ownership group, would allow Fried's potential free agent contract to push $30M per year on a six or seven-year deal.

Both the initial article calculating the price of an extension and Britton's follow-up on timing of the deal are available for subscribers to The Athletic.